Month: May 2018

The Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection is another example of Digital Eclipse going above and beyond to properly port and pay tribute to a bounty of classic Capcom games. This anthology includes 12 Street Fighter arcade ports in all, and four of the best have been updated for online play. You can also find plenty of insightful history to unpack outside of combat. From soundtracks to sprite animation breakdowns, to high-res design documents for classic and cancelled games alike, there’s a wealth of high-quality reference material to round out the robust selection of games.

All told, the 30th Anniversary Collection includes the original Street Fighter, five versions of Street Fighter II, three iterations of Street Fighter III, and the Street Fighter Alpha, Alpha 2, and Alpha 3. It’s great to have all of these seemingly arcade-perfect ports in one place today, and with any luck, for many generations to come. Eagle-eyed aficionados will note the absence of Alpha 2 Gold and Alpha 3 Upper, both of which were available in 2006’s Street Fighter Alpha Anthology on PS2, but their omission is far from a deal-breaker.

Likewise, while it may be momentarily disappointing that your favorite console ports are missing (understandable given the lofty scope of emulating multiple consoles) what is here plays wonderfully. If you already love these games, no matter how you played them in the past, the 30th Anniversary Collection will deliver a great experience. In some cases, you may just be looking for a quick trip down memory lane, because let’s be honest, the original Street Fighter isn’t great by modern standards; it is nonetheless awesome to see it preserved so well and be so easily accessible.

The enduring qualities of the collection’s more notable games remain as strong as ever. Capcom’s prowess for making exciting and attractive 2D fighting games was almost unparalleled during the ’90s, and thus a game like Street Fighter III feels only marginally retro 19 years after the fact. In a similar fashion, Street Fighter Alpha 3’s roster variety and variable fighting mechanics make it a fan-favorite to this day for reasons all its own. Does every version of Street Fighter II feel worth playing? Maybe not in isolation, but the evolution of that game in particular meant a lot to the community that grew up around it, and its prominent share of the games list helps tell the complete story of an important chapter in video game history.

Street Fighter’s popularity rose out of tense face-to-face arcade bouts, and every game in this collection was released before the popularization of online battles. Over the years, however, Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting, Super Street Fighter II Turbo, Street Fighter Alpha 3, and Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike would wind up on various connected platforms. Those same games makeup the selection of online-enabled games here, and they exist under a single roof (one lobby can support fight requests for all of the available games at once.) Digital Eclipse has implemented a customizable framework that allows you to dial-in settings tied to input latency, giving you a small but meaningful advantage in the battle against poor network connections.

Just as the 30th Anniversary Collection breathes new life into classic games, its supplemental material helps you appreciate them in all new ways. There’s an interactive timeline that chronicles 30 years of milestone and obscure events alike, often with breakout galleries accompanying the release dates of the biggest games. Each of the collection’s 48 relevant characters has a dedicated profile with an interactive sprite gallery that lets you manually scrub through their most iconic attacks from each game, frame by frame. Perhaps most valuable of all, it’s awesome to have complete soundtracks for each included game. There’s a notable lack of video content given what was included in the 25th Anniversary Collection, but Capcom has otherwise given Digital Eclipse a ton of great and never-before-seen content to work with.

That’s more or less the story of the 30th Anniversary Collection. It won’t satisfy every specific demand, but it’s still a big collection of awesome games and behind-the-scenes content that no Street Fighter fan should miss. Street Fighter is a series worth celebrating and Digital Eclipse has managed to do so in a manner that feels respectful to the series and to the people who keep the spirit of arcade battles alive.

Mario Tennis Aces will mark the eighth time the Mushroom Kingdom crew have taken up racquets for a bit of tennis. Developed by veteran Nintendo sports studio Camelot Software, Aces features the colorful and accessible mechanics you might be familiar with from past titles, but includes a number of new systems, like the “Zone Shot” which allowing you to aim and deliver a powerful hit, along with racquet damage, the ability to slow down time, and unique trick shot moves for each character. A number of these new features can be seen in our hands-on 1v1 gameplay video, seen above.

You do have the ability to play matches with all of these features turned off, however. The game’s Simple Mode, as seen in the match between Yoshi and Toad, lets you play a more traditional variant of Mario Tennis on an even playing field, with only the innate styles of each character to consider. Mario Tennis Aces also features a Swing Mode, which allows you to use the motion controls in the Switch Joycons to play a version of the game more akin to Wii Sports Tennis

Mario Tennis Aces also features a story mode, which hasn’t been seen in a Mario Tennis game since Power Tour on the Game Boy Advance. We got a brief hands-on, which you can see in the gameplay clip above. Aside from acting as a tutorial to introduce you to the mechanics, it features a variety of tennis-based challenges. In the video, you’ll see examples of a custom match against Donkey Kong on a court whose nets feature Pirhana Plants that can catch and redirect your shots, and a shot control challenge where you return fireballs from Fire Pirhana Plants.

Nintendo is holding a Mario Tennis Aces Pre-Launch Online Tournament from June 1-3, so you’ll get the chance to try Aces for yourself very soon. You’ll be able to play as Mario, Peach, Yoshi, and Bowser to start, with the chance to unlock five additional characters if you perform well enough. Everyone who participates will be able to unlock a Mario costume–his traditional overalls–for use in the full game.

Mario Tennis Aces will release for Nintendo Switch on June 22.

Avalanche Studios, the Swedish developer known for Just Cause, Mad Max, and Rage 2, has been acquired. Entertainment company Nordisk Film has purchased all of Avalanche’s shares in what Avalanche is calling a “historic deal.”

Nordisk Film had already acquired a minority stake in Avalanche last year, and the company is now paying a further EUR 89 million to buy out the remaining shares. This is reportedly the “single largest acquisition” in Nordisk Film’s 111-year history.

Nordisk Film boss Mikkel Weider said in a statement that Avalanche impressed the company in part due to its “world-class team” and a company culture that matches up with Nordisk’s own. “It also has a unique foundational technology, exciting new titles in development and a strong IP in the The Hunter franchise.”

The Hunter is Avalanche’s lesser-known but very popular hunting series of video games. According to Avalanche, Nordisk Film will not meddle with Avalanche’s main directives. “Avalanche Studios’ strategy will remain unaltered,” the developer said. What this means is Avalanche will continued to operate as an independent unit, create new games, and more.

Avalanche, which was founded in 2003, has 320 employees across its offices in Stockholm and New York City. Earlier this week, Avalanche opened a third studio in Malmo, Sweden. Founders Christofer Sundberg and Linus Blomberg are staying with Avalanche in the wake of the buyout.

Nordisk Film has already made significant investments into gaming, as it’s put money into studios like Flashbulb Games, Kogama, and Reto Moto, among others through its Nordisk Film Games label. Outside of games, Nordisk has partnered with movie giants like DreamWorks, Lionsgate, and others to distribute their movies in parts of the world.

Avalanche’s current project is Rage 2, which it is co-developing with id Software. The game is due to launch in 2019 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

Learn more about the various endings of Detroit: Become Human with this wiki.

An unexpected development in the Solo movie involving L3-37 has creepy repercussions that ripple throughout the rest of the franchise.

Take a look at all the bases State of Decay 2 has to offer.

Reading Doomsday Clock can sometimes be a bizarre experience. It’s not just the sheer novelty of seeing the surviving cast of Watchmen bump elbows with the heroes and villains of the DC Universe, though that’s certainly part of it. It’s also the fact that the tone of this series is so much darker and more bleak than we’re seeing from the rest of DC’s comic line. Where books like Justice League: No Justice are embracing the hope and wonder that have fueled the DC Rebirth era, Doomsday Clock is showcasing the DCU at its most bleak and hopeless. With any other creative team I might worry that this story is steering the DCU in the wrong direction, but Geoff Johns and Gary Frank clearly have a purpose and an endgame in mind here.

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It’s hard to remember a time now when Dan Slott wasn’t writing Amazing Spider-Man. But we’ve finally come to the climax of a decade-long run, as Spidey fights a desperate battle against a villain comprised of two of his deadliest and most deranged foes. The execution is flawed as “Go Down Swinging” reaches its conclusion, but some terrific character moments make up for those flaws.

In terms of overall page count, “Go Down Swinging” is basically your standard-length, six-issue story arc. But structurally, this story has been all over the map. Issue #799 didn’t set the stage as neatly or as dramatically as it could. It probably would have helped to devote more time to gradual build-up and less to the final battle between Spidey and Red Goblin. This issue has a whopping 80 pages to work with, but it doesn’t always use that extra space well. The relentless, unending game of cat-and-mouse starts to drag, with so much of this issue devoted to Spidey chasing after Osborn and fighting to protect his loved ones from becoming collateral damage.

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